Like We Never Loved At All
by Grantx752
Summary: Life after Mellie leaves the White House, after the two finally end their marriage for good.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: To the sweet, sweet people who feel the need to write novel-sized reviews about how Fitz and Mellie were never in love and blah blah, I respect your opinion, but please, keep it to yourself. If you don't want to read about Mellie and Fitz, and my perception of their relationship, that's great, don't. But don't waste your precious time, as well as mine, criticizing and summarizing your perception of things. Thanks, doll. :-)_

Mellie's POV:

It's been two months since I moved out of the White House. Well, moved out isn't the correct term. Being forced out would probably be the better term for that. Once Fitz filed for divorce, he told me I had two days to get the rest of my things, as well as Teddy's things, packed and brought to wherever I planned on staying. That was part of the agreement. That I got Teddy. I was never the motherly type, but since Jerry died, I've become more attached to my baby boy. And Fitz was more attached to his whore than anything in the entire world, so of course, he agreed to that as long as I was out of the house and he was out of our marriage.

The days were long. Every day was long, and it took a good amount of hooch to get me through the day. Teddy and I had spent a few weeks in Asheville in the beginning, spending time with my parents. But I didn't want them to see me how I was, how absolutely broken I was. I was downing liquor like it was water, and I hadn't even flashed a smile at them, or at my son, who had no clue about what was going on. So, we left after about a week and a half, and headed back to DC, to the small one bedroom apartment that we shared. It was cold most of the time, much like the one that Fitz and I had had on Oregon street when we first got married.

That was another part of our divorce agreement, that I stayed in DC so that he could have Teddy every other weekend. I tried to explain that he could still have him every other weekend, even if I moved to Asheville, or back to Santa Barbara, but he objected and said that if I wanted to keep Teddy, I stay in DC. That was that. I was too weak to argue. I was so sick of the arguing, of the pointless, endless fights that we had so frequently. I was so tired. So tired of the fighting, so tired of trying...

Andrew tried to comfort me, but surprisingly, to both myself and to him, I didn't want him to comfort me. All I wanted was Fitz, but as that wasn't an option, I had to settle on the endless supply of hooch that I seemed to have acquired over the years. I was fine with that, but the days that I had Teddy, I had to put on my mommy face and distract myself with my boy to keep myself from drowning in homemade liquor. Teddy was taking it better than expected. He liked having his mommy to himself all the time. He wasn't a huge fan of going to Fitz, but when I would take him to the White House, I would promise him that it was only two days, and that he could call me whenever he wanted to. I always got at least three phone calls a day from him, usually crying and begging me to come get him. It's not that he didn't love Fitz, he did. He was just a three year old boy who wanted nothing more than to curl up with his mommy and have her hold him at the end of the day.

But on those days that Teddy was with Fitz, and in the evenings after I had given him his bath, sang him his lullaby, and put him to bed, it was me time. It was the time that I could sit on the couch and drink my face off, so that I could completely forget about what my life had come to. Damn it, Big Jerry had really screwed things up. Even after Fitz had found out, he just brushed it off. Of course, he cared until he found out that his whore was gone, and then that was all that he cared about. So I drank. He had his whore and I had my hooch. Of course, that was pathetic. My life was pathetic.

Fitz had called me on the Friday that I was to bring Teddy to the White House, and told me that I had left some things there. I gathered Teddy and his bag, sighing as he begged me to let him stay home, tears streaming down his chubby cheeks. I ran my fingers through his soft hair, assuring him that he would be okay before getting him in the car. We got to the White House and Fitz sent me a text, telling me to meet him in the Residence after I dropped Teddy off with Marta. It would be the first time that I would be face to face with him since the day I left, that was full of screaming and the flying of large objects. My wedding ring had nailed him in the face, the huge diamond cutting him and drawing blood. The bastard deserved it. He deserved a hell of a lot more than a cut from a wedding ring. I wanted to see him burn.

Marta distracted Teddy when I dropped him off in his old room, and I hugged him, kissing all over his face before leaving and heading up to the master bedroom, which was now Fitz and Olivia's bedroom. Fitz had texted me once more and told me that's where he wanted me to meet him. I sighed to myself as I walked into the room, my heels clacking against the floor. He had my things in a Prada bag, one that I hadn't seen since before we had gotten married, set on the bed. I looked up at him and grabbed the bag without a word.

"You left those." He said simply, unable to make eye contact with me.

I rolled my eyes slightly, looking in the bag to see what was in there. "Why are these in here?" I held up a pair of pink silk panties, which was pretty much just a thin, flimsy piece of material that would barely cover any part of a woman. But they used to be my favorite panties. I knew why they were in there. I asked to hear his response.

Fitz shrugged, as if he didn't remember. As if he didn't remember that he took them off of me one evening, when we had first gotten married, and told me that he was keeping them, that he wanted them so that he could take them with him when he had to be away from me. I knew he remembered why he had them, but he was such a stubborn ass that he didn't want to dignify my question with any type of response.

I huffed, shaking my head as I shoved the material back into the bag. I looked up at him, actually looking at him, and noticed how good he looked. I'd been noticing how good he smelled since I walked in the room, but I wanted to brush it off, since I was so extremely angry at him. I took a deep breath, which Fitz took as another angry sigh, but really, it was just an excuse to breathe in his scent, to smell how intoxicating he was.

"Thats all." He told me, nodding over toward the door. Sadly, I nodded, turning quickly and leaving the room, keeping my head high as I left the house. I waved goodbye to my boy, was who quietly playing cars in his bedroom. He didn't notice me, which was clearly a good thing, because if he had, it would have been another war for me as I tried to leave. I stayed strong until I got back to my apartment, where I closed the door and sat on the couch, immediately reaching for the bottle. That was the only way that I could handle things anymore.

Unfortunately, I got a call from my old chief of staff, Rachel, saying that I had to attend a ball tonight. Our divorce wasn't final, and technically I was still the First Lady, so I still had to go to functions where I would go if mine and Fitz's relationship were normal. I didn't have to stand by his side, but I had to attend.

So I got dressed, reluctantly. I drank some more, took a shower and downed some coffee to try and get rid of the buzz. I went to the ball and watched as Fitz danced with his whore, with the biggest smile on his face. I hadn't seem him smile that big in nearly 16 years. It physically pained me to see him so happy. Our divorce wasn't even final. He had filed for divorce less than two months ago. I had left less than two months ago. He was acting as if less than two months ago, he hadn't ended a marriage that took up so many years of his life. He acted as if he was never married, as if Olivia was his first love.

He looked perfect. He'd actually never looked so good, but of course I'd never say anything to him about it. Or anyone for that matter. I watched him dance and smile, and converse with everyone, and I felt myself literally become sick to my stomach. Maybe that was just his way of dealing with the pain. Or maybe there was no pain. Maybe he had been so done with me for so many years that there was no pain for him. It was as if he had forgotten everything between our rise and fall, as if I had never existed, as if we were never married, as if I had never mattered to him. I watched as he looked over at me, glancing for a moment before turning his head. I had to leave before I burst into tears right there in front of everyone.

I found myself in a bathroom stall, tears falling down my face as I thought. It was as if he had looked right through me when he had looked at me, like I wasn't even there. I was still living with his goodbye, downing hooch and crying myself to sleep every night, and he was just going on with his life. Didn't he have the slightest feelings left for me, his wife of over 20 years? What was his secret, how did he possibly let go like he did, like we had never existed? I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror, shaking my head. Did he ever miss me? Did he ever think about me, or about what we had, before it all turned bad? Even in the bad, we still had our moments, our good moments. How could he do that? How could he moved on like that, like...

Like we never loved at all...


	2. Chapter 2

Fitz's POV:

I thought it was what I had wanted. I thought that a divorce was exactly what I had needed in order to make myself happy. I assumed that by finally having the chance to be with Liv freely and without having to worry about Mellie, I would finally be completely happy. But that was so far from the truth.

Now, I was miserable. I was absolutely and positively miserable. It's not that I didn't love Liv. I did, with all my heart. I do. But that's not what I needed to make me happy. If it was, I wouldn't be here right now, trying to figure out what went wrong in my marriage and what I had to do to get my Mellie back. We fell apart, I get that. But even after all of the hell we've been through together, there had to be a way to fix things, to fix my marriage. It's been two months since she left and there hasn't been a day that I haven't thought about her.

_"Get out."_

_"Excuse me?"_

_"Get out. Get out and just leave me alone."_

_"This is my room too, Mellie!"_

_"I understand that, Fitz. But I'm not going to sit here and listen to you criticize and tell me how bad of a person I am." She took a sip of her hooch, crossing her legs slightly as she watched Fitz stand there, in the middle of their room, not moving an inch._

_"Either you leave or I leave, Fitz. And if it's me, I'm leaving. I'm not coming back."_

_"Oh, quit, Mellie." Fitz shook his head, rolling his eyes as he looked at his wife. "Put down the damn glass and go to sleep."_

_Mellie raised an eyebrow and laughed slightly. "Call my bluff, Fitzgerald. It's you or me." She stood up, looking at him for a moment. Still, he didn't move, so she took that as her answer. She began to walk into the closet, but Fitz stopped her, standing in front of her. She tried to push past him, but he gripped her shoulders, refusing to let her move. "Fitz, let me go!" Mellie demanded, trying to keep her emotions in tact. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. She didn't know what she wanted. But right now, she just wanted to go. She wanted to leave. But he wouldn't let her._

_Finally, she managed to get out of his tight grip and pack herself a bag. She got her son from his bedroom and went to Blair House. The next morning, she got a text from Fitz, telling her that she had two days to get her and Teddy's things from the house. Of course, Fitz didn't mean this, he didn't think she'd do it. But he was angry._

Still, she did it, and now she was gone. She was gone and every single day, I kick myself for it. I spent his days locked in his office, downing scotch and trying to distract myself with his work. I had his moments with Olivia, my beautiful Liv, who I was currently in a relationship with, and I tried to hide the fact that I was hurt over everything. She could see past me, past my wall, but she didn't want to ruin anything by pushing me too hard.

I had called her by Mellie's name once during sex. Mels, actually, but same difference. I was under her, and I moaned out Mellie's name, which immediately pissed Olivia off, causing her to leave. I had called her Mellie a few other times, but luckily she hadn't caught it. At least those weren't during sex. I missed her. I would never dare to tell anyone that, especially not Liv or Mellie, but I missed her. I didn't really talk to her, only though texts when they agreed on Teddy's schedule.

I didn't know about her life, about whether she was with Andrew, or where she was staying, or what she was doing. It physically pains me to think that she was with Andrew, to think that she was screwing him every night, that she was already over all of the years that we had spent together. I'm not positive about them being together, but I have a hunch, and I'm pretty sure that they were. If they were together while she was with me, why wouldn't they be together while she wasn't with me?

Some nights, nearly every night, I longed to text her, to tell her to come home. I laid next to Olivia and all that I wanted to do was lie next to Mellie, to hold her small body against mine, to hide my face in her dark hair that always smelled of the familiar coconut shampoo that she loved so much. I wanted Liv to be Mellie. I wanted his Mellie back.

But one side of me is telling him that I needed to move on. I had longed for this, for the divorce, for Mellie to be gone, for so many years. I had wanted her to be gone so that he could freely be with Liv and have a family with her and live in Vermont and be the mayor while she made jam. But now that my dream, the dream, was becoming a reality, I discovered that the dream wasn't what I really wanted. However, it didn't matter. I needed to move on. Me and Mellie weren't happy in our relationship. We really hadn't been since Big Jerry had forced himself onto her that evening. I needed to accept the fact that I finally got what I wanted and I needed to make do with that.

But the other side of me was telling me to get his baby back, to fight for the woman that I had pushed away from me for oh so many years. I hated the thought of her being away from me, of her being with someone else. I just wanted to break down and cry when I thought about Mellie being with someone other than me. I have spent the past two months thinking about the mistake that I made, letting Mellie walk out that night. But it was too late and she wasn't coming back.

I texted Mellie on a day that she was supposed to bring Teddy, and told her to come meet me in our old bedroom in the Residence because I had some of her things that she had left. To tell the truth, I had honestly just torn up the room looking for some of her things, any excuse that I could possibly have to see her face to face, to look at her, to smell her. She stepped in the room, looking much like she had when they had first gotten married. She didn't dress up as fancy as she did as First Lady, and to be honest, I loved that. I loved seeing her in jeans, shorter heels, and a nice black v-neck. Her long dark hair was up in a ponytail and her makeup was done by herself, not by a stylist.

I had her things in a Prada bag, her favorite from when we had first gotten married. She looked up at me and grabbed the bag without a word.

"You left those." I said simply, unable to make eye contact with me. I couldn't look at her. For some odd reason, I just couldn't look at her. God, I wanted to look at her so badly but I just couldn't.

Mellie rolled her eyes and began looking in the bag. "Why are these in here?" He held up a pair of pink silk panties, which was pretty much just a thin, flimsy piece of material.

Those panties. Those panties brought back the most painful memories. Memories of when we were happy with one another, when we had first gotten married, when our sex life was great, and our life itself was just great. The thought of the story behind those panties nearly brought tears to my bright eyes. But I couldn't think about that. I had to act tough.

So I acted as if I didn't remember the significance of the panties, as if I didn't remember them at all. I just shrugged, trying not to think about the night that I had slipped them down her perfect legs and put them in my pocket as I whispered to Mellie the dirty things that I would do with them when I had to be away from her. When I had to be away from her, for some reason or another, I would take out her panties and smell them, hold them, and think of her as I rubbed one out and counted down the time until I could be with her again. Those panties had been everywhere with me, I had actually just held them in my hand and fingered the material the other night while I thought about how much I had missed my sweet Mellie. But she didn't need to know that.

I could see the sadness in her eyes, how much it hurt for her to think that I didn't remember the panties. I watched her shove them into her bag and I knew that she needed to leave. If she didn't leave now, I would lose it and that couldn't happen. Not right now, not ever, in fact.

"Thats all." I told her, cooly, as I watched her walk out of the room. I took a deep breath and sat down on the bed. I had let her walk away from me yet again.

She had changed, but for good reasons. She had gone from my sweet Mellie, who never had a hint of evil in her body, to someone who could easily be considered Satan's sidekick. Of course, she had good reasoning. The thing with Big Jerry, and then me drifting away from her because I no longer had a sufficient sexual relationship with her, she had every right to change. I had changed too. I had drifted away from her and I had found Olivia. I had fallen into her arms and I had fallen in love with her. I won't lie, I did love her, I still love her. But there's a type of love that you have for your first love, that you can never get over. You can never love anyone the way that you loved your first love. And Mellie was my first love. As cold and heartless as she had seemed to have become sometimes, I still loved that woman with all of my heart, even though it was extremely hard to show.

I watched her act as if everything was fine. I watched her act as though we hadn't just ended our 20+ year marriage. Of course, she had always been stronger than me, especially after the night that Big Jerry had taken the real Mellie and turned her into someone that she wasn't. She was always good at hiding things. But this truly seemed like she was over it, like she was already over us.

I had to attend a ball tonight, which I really didn't want to, but I knew I didn't have a choice. I had Olivia by my side and I danced with her all night, but didn't for a second forget that Mellie was there as well. I caught glimpses of her, walking around and chatting with everyone, looking absolutely gorgeous as ever. But I never let her or Olivia see me stare. I couldn't.

It was hard, nerve wracking, to see her stand so close to me and act as if we had never had a relationship, as if there had never been an "us". For us, it was always "you and me", and now it wasn't anymore. Now it was me, and it was Mellie, worlds apart. It was as if there had never been a "you and me". How could she be so strong about all of this? How could she just act like we were never married, like the happy years that we had had, had never existed? She was always good at masking pain, and it was a possibility that she was just acting like me, not only trying to stay strong for the people around us, but also for ourselves.

I glanced over at where she had once been standing and noticed that she was gone. I skimmed the room for her, sighing to myself once realizing that she was nowhere to be found. I continued dancing with Liv, once again becoming lost in my thoughts. The way we were acting was terrible. It was killing me. We needed to talk at some point, about us, about the divorce, about Teddy. But I couldn't bring myself to do it just yet. I couldn't bring myself to do it because I didn't know what to expect and I just wasn't ready for that. So until then, I was stuck. We both were. We were stuck acting as if there was never an us, we were never together. We were stuck acting like strangers, like...

Like we never loved at all.


End file.
